The learning needs of English students have been researched over the past decades in different countries, especially among non-speaking English ones. The core goal of these studies was to examine if learner needs/wants and learning outcomes of the English course/curriculum provided are sufficiently matched, i.e., whether or not students feel…

This study sought to evaluate an English language acquisition program at a public, urban high school in Connecticut. To that end, qualitative and quantitative data was compiled and analyzed. Qualitative data was mined to determine teacher perceptions about the program and levels of supports and interventions provided to those students identified…

Research in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), that is the medium of communication between people who come from different linguacultural backgrounds, has created a rich body of work in various areas. This article focuses on a more recent development of this research for teachers and teacher educators in the perspective of critical language…

Languages in the Mesoamerican linguistic area have been reported to lack a dedicated means of expressing the privative meaning that encodes the absence of a participant in a situation. This micro-typological study identifies alternative strategies that the languages in this area employ to function without dedicated privative markers, namely…

Background: Recent research has shown that socio-emotional and language competencies are positively associated with each other. However, few studies have explored these associations for the second language competencies (L2) of young dual language learners (DLLs). Aims: This longitudinal study investigated possible bidirectional associations…

Previous research has raised concerns that equity may be compromised in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) education, creating schisms in otherwise fairly egalitarian education systems. In Andalusia (southern Spain), where bilingual education has expanded, this article aims to analyze the difference between CLIL bilingual education…

The paper describes the role parental language ideology and the home literacy environment play in heritage language (HL) literacy learning of bilingual Arabic-English-speaking children in the UK. Information about the under-reported literacy practices of Arabic-English-speaking families will enhance current knowledge about HL literacy practices…

English has undergone several transformations recently. One of them is the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) among its linguistically diverse speakers. Many studies have been conducted on ELF in different settings, including Turkey. However, most studies were concerned with preservice language teachers. Thus, this study explored 40 EFL…

This article explores the potential of phonetic symbols in pronunciation teaching/learning, with a focus on English language teaching (ELT). After a brief contextualisation of current views of pronunciation instruction in the second-language (L2) teaching literature, the article reviews some of the potential advantages of, conditions for, and…

The present study aims to examine how listening comprehension processes (top-down and bottom-up) differ by second language proficiency. To investigate such differences, experiments (listening tasks) followed by questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were conducted. Participants included 18 lower intermediate learners, 19 upper intermediate…

Various research studies in the field of psychology have shown that the phenomenon of stereotype threat is real and has a consistent and measurable negative effect on individuals' performance on cognitively demanding tasks in a variety of areas. Currently, the relationship between stereotype threat and second language acquisition has not been…

This article provides an overview of the research on morpho-syntactic challenges in Swedish-speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD), compared with typically developing (TD) children learning Swedish as their first and second language (L1/L2). Children with DLD show vulnerabilities with verb finiteness, the possessive…

This study examines cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in the acquisition of embedded "wh"-questions in L3 English in German-dominant heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian. Specifically, we investigate whether a higher proficiency in the heritage language Italian increases the potential for CLI from that language. To this end, 21 adult-aged…

The generalisation of linguistic constructions is performed through analogical reasoning. Children with developmental language disorders (DLD) are impaired in analogical reasoning and in generalisation. However, these processes are improved by an input involving variability and similarity. Here we investigated the performance of children with or…

In this contribution, I argue for a radical reappraisal of accepted ideas about how English is taught and tested. I am not alone in questioning the validity of the current orthodoxy. Others have expressed views that correspond or are consistent with the points I make here. What I have sought to do is to synthesize them in the formulation of a…